


The Petals Between His Fingers

by Sushi Jinko (catatonicInflection)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-23 08:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17077268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catatonicInflection/pseuds/Sushi%20Jinko
Summary: This is it, Kei was going to die for a poor, pitiful love. One he never asked for, one he doesn't expect to be returned.





	1. Hypothermia or Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! I may continue this if I get enough requests. I don't really write much because I don't like my own writing but I felt kind of encouraged to post this! I think I'll also list this as completed unless I do get convinced to continue it, then I'll take it off completed!

Kei Tsukishima was dying. There were no if ands or buts about it. He couldn’t change the facts staring him straight in the face. He had witnessed others for years go through this, some were cured, others were not. He would not be either. It wasn’t okay, but neither was his alternative. How would the others take this? Would they mourn him? Would they be able to move on? This was all too much for a male his age to even think about. In this cruel world, he supposed that he didn’t have a choice.

Kei had gone out to practice tonight, he needed to get better, the team needed him to get better. Well, they would be disappointed. At least it would be simple to replace him. Just find someone else who was tall and could block, problem solved. After the training camp, he had come to the decision to allow himself to become serious about volleyball. Where he was previously hesitant, now he was motivated, or at least was. He now debated on dropping off the team.

The blonde’s white and green striped shoes were currently covered in saliva, stuck to them were little petals. They were mixed between red and pink and grew more white towards the inner petal. He had recognized the petals due to working for a summer at a flower shop. The flower had been called anemone, he vaguely remembered an old lady coming in the store and asking for these specific flowers. They had meant fading hope and represented the feeling of being forsaken.

The blocker’s mind was swirling with the death sentence, trying to comprehend everything that was to come. Imagining how everything would play out. He could see himself being lowered into the ground. How depressing. He looked up, dragging his blurry gaze away from the cursed petals. 

In front of him was a wall, he had gone to the nearest park to practice. It had been easier to run practice drills with this wall than trying to find an open gym this late with a net. The sky had grown dark and a few stars tried to peek out and shine, combatting with the glow from the lamposts. Kei shivered. He had been shivering ever since the coughs had ripped through his chest, but only had just realized. It had grown chilly. 

The little awareness allowed him to get back in touch with his senses. It let him take in more of his surroundings, hear the crickets, see the glow of the lights, feel the cold air, taste the tear that had made its way down his face. He needed to pull himself together, but just couldn’t bring himself to move. It was as if Kei was just a bystander, watching as his body collapsed to the ground, making the petals shift.

He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t rid himself of this stupid, unnecessary emotion. Who had decided this? Why was falling in love a death sentence? It made no sense. He had seen happy couples, he had seen what was supposed to happen, but he wasn’t like them. His feelings weren’t reciprocated and it crushed him. At that thought, the roots that had unknowingly grown in his chest tightened around his lungs. They were digging their way into his respiratory system without hesitation. He found it hard to breathe.

Kei had begun hyperventilating unknowingly, thoughts swam around his head, and black dots did the same in his vision. The roots didn’t help either. He was gasping for air like a dying fish, falling even further to the ground. His thoughts hadn’t helped, if anything it spurred on the Hanahaki even further. Another few moments of trying to get any form of oxygen in his lungs, he started to cough, no not cough, hack. His entire body heaved against the ground as he tried to dislodge the petals caught in his throat. It felt like there were so many. They started flowing freely from his mouth, each cough pushing them out, each intake of breath brought them back.

He had thought he was going to die before but it was nothing like this. His love was doing this to him. His stupid, childish feelings were doing this. They were suffocating him physically and mentally. He couldn’t handle this anymore. He couldn’t do it. He was tired. Kei just wanted to be happy, to be good at volleyball, to make a friend or two. He never wanted this and what it meant. He was like his namesake. He glowed for a bit, but that light would go out. His light was going to go out in the end.

After a few more minutes of desperate coughs and gasps of breath, the petals had finally stopped. They were lying softly on the ground by his face. The tension in his body had just dropped, and he was fine, for now. How was he going to get up and take himself home? He barely had any energy left to keep his eyes open, let alone pick his wrecked body off the cold, concrete ground. His shivering had grown worse, and there were petals everywhere. Some were stuck to his hoodie, some had found their way into his hands damp with saliva, and there were a couple still on his shoes from earlier. He couldn’t just leave them there in the open.

Kei started devising a plan to get rid of them, and to pick himself up. He had gotten as far as pushing his upper body up before he collapsed again, this time his vision completely passing out. His last thought was that the cold would kill him before the Hanahaki could even get a chance to.

What Kei hadn’t noticed were the feet pounding against the pavement, approaching his collapsed body. Accompanying those footsteps was the sound of his name being shouted, terrified and worried. Their voice had cracked. Black hair swung back and forth in the movement, and in the next moment, Kei’s limp form was cradled in the tall, raven-haired man’s arms.


	2. Stained Marigolds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I received a bunch of positive feedback so here you go! Marigolds in this context represent despair and grief over the loss of love. This is a sad chapter by the way.

Kei had an older brother, well he could suppose he technically still did, even if he was dead. Akiteru had been six years older than him and he had passed away suddenly during his 2nd year of high school. No one had known that he was sick, not even their own family. It had torn Kei down and made him curse the emotion called love. He had sworn to himself that he would never fall in love, he wouldn’t be like his brother, but, fate had other plans.

Akiteru developed the Hanahaki disease and kept it hidden for months, usually, it could take up to a year to kill someone, but it must have been a bittersweet feeling because Aki left the world a few months later. He had chosen not to get the surgery, and also not tell anyone who the love was for. A couple people may have had an idea or two, but no one was ever really right. No one could have possibly guessed that he had fallen in love with the person who made him feel so inferior. 

He had loved volleyball, he had wanted to excel and put so much work into making the Karasuno team, but he never did. He hadn’t even made it to the bench, but others had, one, in particular, had been so great, so skilled, he felt he could never compare. The Small Giant had gone to Karasuno and earned a spot on the team, and soon became the Ace. Aki wasn’t sure how his feelings got twisted in the end, how he had ended up caring for the male, but who would have guessed it would have led to his early death.

Akiteru was very silent about his own problems, a characteristic that annoyed Kei to no end, but he wouldn’t have anticipated he would have gone this far to not worry anyone else. Aki suffered for three months in silence, closer to the end he had dropped out of the club, stopped practicing, and spent more time in his room.

One night, Kei had heard coughing and hacking in the hallway and rushed out to check on his brother. He had seen the petals first and was confused. When did Aki buy flowers? Why were they on the floor? It just didn’t make any sense. Young Kei hadn’t really had any encounters with Hanahaki before then so the possibility had never crossed his mind.

His brother turned around, eyes red from crying and saliva on the corner of his mouth. Soft marigold flowers had stuck to his shirt, fell in his hands, and laid on the ground. Most were full blooms. He reached out a hand to Kei and was about to call out to him before another set of coughs wracked his body. He fell to his knees, blonde hair hanging partially over his eyes. A few more petals had fallen out of his mouth before a bunch of full blooms trailed after them. This scene would be forever engrained in Kei’s mind for the rest of his life. The evidence of what would happen should you fall in love, the evidence of how truly horrible that emotion was.

His brother looked as if he was surrounded by the sun, soft red and yellow flowers tucked around him as he struggled to breathe. Kei tried to yell at his body to move, to help him, to call someone to save his brother, but it was almost impossible. Not when his brother’s eyes peeked through his hair and gave him that look. That pleading look, the resignation that was pooling in his eyes. The coughs still hadn’t stopped and it was harder for Aki to take in a breath. He could see Aki’s lips form his name, in between the harsh coughs. 

Kei finally could move, he rushed forward and crashed into Aki, hugging him, no more like cradling the older male. Akiteru still couldn’t breathe. It took the average human seven minutes to die from the lack of oxygen. The older blonde had been coughing for three. His body started giving out, and now it was only Kei supporting him. Akiteru never wished for this, never wished for his brother to watch this love kill him.

The younger blonde was numb, he was finally understanding what was going on. His older brother was dying from Hanahaki, and it was bad. With the way time was passing, this may be his last moments. Kei couldn’t bring himself to cry. The ten-year-old could hardly believe that this was happening, that he was sitting on the ground, holding his brothers rattling body and soothingly running his fingers through the other's hair. 

Aki clung to Kei, his body collapsed against the others and the unceasing coughs. Flowers had begun to fall on top of Kei instead had he blocked their path to the floor. He had reached the five-minute mark, not much time left. The roots encroached faster upon his lungs, the stems crawling up his throat, blocking his airway. The coughs only accelerated the progress and Aki fell limp against Kei. 

The coughing had stopped.

Kei must have sat for hours holding his brother’s body, he felt it go limp, he vaguely remembered the coughs stopping, and the body growing cold. He didn’t come back to his senses until his family had pulled him away and held him sobbing. Flowers fluttered off of Kei as he had been moved, they fell to the ground and stared mockingly back at him.

Kei was ushered into the bathroom to shower. When he glanced in the mirror he could see more than flowers clung to him. His front side was covered in specks of blood. He had been wearing a white hoodie, and now it was ruined. He never brought himself to throw it away in the end. He kept it as a reminder, of what not to do and what would happen if he did.

Kei showered and the next few days moved by in a blur. His mind was still frozen, replaying the entire scene in his mind. He had been excused from school for the next two weeks at least, but it never helped. Kei would walk into the hallway and stop, he could be found staring at a particular part of the floor, in a daze.

It wasn’t until the funeral that everything started to move forward again. He went through the motions of the viewing, spoke words that he couldn’t even register, and it wasn’t until he got home it set in. He was standing in front of his brother's room when it happened. His brain finally hiccuped and finally started working again as another thought dawned on him.

His brother was dead.

His brother was dead because of love because he had fallen in love and coughed up petals. His brother had decided that his feelings were more important than his responsibility of being a big brother. He had decided that getting the surgery was out of the question. He had suffered by himself. He hadn’t asked for help. Kei didn’t understand… until he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is greatly appreciated also I don't edit any of this I am super lazy. I was only supposed to write 500 words today for an update next week, but this happened... I also don't have a strict path I am going with this, I am just going with the flow and with whatever I can write.


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